COSATU WC Statement on rugby quotas
COSATU had been approached by a number of rugby players, both Black and White, who are concerned about how a conservative old boere clique controls SA Rugby. COSATU supports the call for quotas in rugby to ensure that the establishment within rugby don't continue to frustrate a more representative rugby team. Clearly there are many incredibly talented and skilled black players who don't get selected or only warm the bench. The coach has brought back a lot of old retired players and has an outdated game plan that has not been able to keep track with All Blacks Rugby (see Cape Times report).
DSTV are also complicit in promoting the old boys club in SA rugby and continues to put up commentators who talk up the old status quo. COSATU supports Ashwin Willemse for keeping SA rugby honest by raising the difficult questions that must be considered if we are to have a more representative team and better brand of rugby. COSATU will fight any attempts to victimise Willemse for raising these tough questions on the DSTV programme.
COSATU calls for the transformation plan to be discussed publicly and for inputs at all levels to be included in the discussions towards the final policy. COSATU also calls on the sponsors, such as SA Breweries and ABSA to take a stand on the matters of transformation, failing which we will call on Government to review the tax breaks they receive for their sponsorship as well as plan protest action against them.
We support without reservation that stance taken by Tutu and Chester Williams for more drastic transformation and dismiss their detractors as those who have always sought to defend the apartheid generational advantage of Whites. COSATU will remind Habana that without political pressure, he would not have made the team and would not have been able to display his amazing talent. The White establishment need Black faces to give legitimacy to their manipulation of the team and those Blacks must not deny that they initially got into the teams because of political pressure on the boere Mafia of rugby.
Statement issued by COSATU Western Cape Provincial Secretary, Tony Ehrenreich, September 8 2014
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